In the summer of 1983, the United States ran a top-secret, real-time national-command-level wargame called Proud Prophet. It’s purpose: to test how political and military crises between the U.S. and the Soviet Union might escalate—and whether anyone could prevent them from spiraling into nuclear war.
The simulation wasn’t staffed by analysts or mid-level planners. It was “played” by the actual people who would make these decisions in a real crisis: Cabinet officials, generals, and national security leaders.
The game’s scenario’s were developed by Thomas Schelling, a Nobel Prize–winning economist and strategist. Schelling pioneered the use of game theory to models behaviors within conflicts, influencing decades of nuclear policy.
The exercise itself was overseen by Paul Nitze, one of the key architects of U.S. nuclear policy since World War II. Nitze served under multiple presidents as United States Deputy Secretary of Defense, U.S. Secretary of the Navy, and Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department. His resume wasn’t theoretical— it was operational.
This wasn’t a think-tank simulation. Proud Prophet was real policymakers stress-testing their own doomsday machinery.
Proud Prophet ran multiple political and military crisis scenarios. Every single one ended in full-scale global nuclear war.
After playing, participants reportedly left shaken to the core. Some real-world policy changes followed, though much remained classified for decades.
Parts of Proud Prophet were finally declassified in 2021, but most remains heavily redacted. Entire pages are blacked out. Critical details are missing. The full truth of how the game unfolded is still obscured.
What we do know is this:
Proud Prophet proved that once nuclear weapons are on the table, rational actors can still reach irrational ends.
It wasn’t about one bad call. It was about a system that fails under pressure.